Question of the Day

Whose side of the story do you believe?

WASHINGTON (AP) - An Indiana woman, two of her four children and a foreign exchange student were among the six people killed in a small plane crash in Virginia, a family member said Saturday.

Fifty-two-year-old Lisa Borinstein, 19-year-old Luke Borinstein and 15-year-old Emma Borinstein, were killed in Friday’s crash along with a foreign exchange student, said Joseph Borinstein, the children’s grandfather, speaking in a telephone interview Saturday.

Joseph Borinstein said the family had chartered the plane to fly to Virginia, where his eldest grandson Drew is a senior at Virginia Military Institute. Emma’s twin brother stayed at home in Shelbyville, Indiana, because he had football and basketball practice, he said.

“It’s a sad thing, and we’re just absolutely overwhelmed by this loss. It’s unreal. Hard to express yourself,” he said.

The children’s father died last year. Joseph Borinstein said his daughter-in-law was a “wonderful lady” who worked as a registered nurse. He said his grandson Luke Borinstein had just completed his first year at Wabash College, an all-male liberal arts college in Indiana, and was interested in medicine. The school said on its website Saturday that he had just returned from a two-week immersion trip to Lima, Peru, and had spent the first part of his summer working in a biology professor’s lab.

The Virginia State Police on Saturday identified the others killed in the crash as: 15-year-old Maren Timmermann of Berlin, Germany; 64-year-old William C. Hamerstadt of Carmel, Indiana, who was piloting the plane; and 73-year-old Robert D. Ross of Louisville, Kentucky, the owner of the plane.

Hamerstadt’s wife, Marilyn, said by email that she was mourning the loss of her husband.

“He was my true hero and the love of my life,” she wrote.

Both Emma and Maren were students at Triton Central High School, Emma a sophomore and Maren a junior, according to the school system.

Virginia State Police said in a statement that the plane took off from Louisville on Friday morning and stopped in Shelbyville before continuing on to Virginia. The plane crashed into trees after aborting its landing at Shannon Airport in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

An investigation determined that the 1969 Beech 95-B55 twin-engine, fixed-wing aircraft touched down midway down the runway at Shannon Airport and then executed a “go-around,” Virginia State Police said. As the plane attempted to turn and climb it appeared to have stalled as it made it beyond the railroad tracks at the end of the airport property, State Police said. The plane banked, crashed in the trees and immediately caught fire, State Police said.

The Virginia State Police, Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the cause of the crash.

___

Follow Jessica Gresko on Twitter at https://twitter.com/jessicagresko. Her work can be found at https://bigstory.ap.org/content/jessica-gresko.